I think this is the cheapest 970m in Australia right now, with Dell's great support and excellent build quality I think this is a steal.
Guide to getting alienware 15 to this price:
- Go to: http://www.dell.com/au/p/alienware-15/pd
- For the first laptop that costs $1999 scroll down and change the GPU to the 970m
- Go back to CPU and change it to the i7, the price should now be $2159.60 (See edit3)
- Go to checkout and apply the above coupon code.
- Price should now be $1835.66(price should now be 1768.34)
- Optional step - If you want an even better deal hit up dell sales support after saving your cart and I'm sure you can haggle and get some extra goodies such as extended warranty. Obviously YMMV.
The same coupon code should also work for any Dell XPS 13 above $1600 seen here: http://www.dell.com/au/p/xps-13-9343-laptop/pd
Edit: I should add that the code works with any alienware system over $1600. (15% discount)
Edit2: Looks like they changed the promotion of 16GB ram - > 128GB m.2 SSD+ 1tb 7200RPM HDD, which is better IMO.
Edit3: By the looks of it the i7 4710HQ option was removed and I have updated the deal, it appears to be out of stock since none of the other AW15s have that option now. I think the deal is still decent since the price has gone down although it is not as good as before: http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/i5-vs-i7-midrange-gaming-p…
Here is a benchmark between 2 CPUs that are very similar. As you can see the difference is only around 5-10% because the i5 has hyper threading.
Note: I know those CPUs have the M notation instead of H notation, it just means that one is soldered and one is not. The performance is identical.
Seems like a good price.
Strange the keyboard doesn't have a numpad.
If anyone wants a smaller/lighter laptop with the same specs- the Clevo P650SE is great. 970m, 2.5kg's & 2.5cm thin.